CNA<\/a>).- A biographer of Blessed John Henry Newman says the noted 19th-century Catholic convert can offer guidance to Anglicans in the midst of their denomination's current moral and doctrinal crisis.<\/p>\n\tCardinal Newman \u201csaw the importance of knowing one's faith, and the truths revealed by God through the Church \u2013 and the importance of living according to those truths, not according to opinions,\u201d said Father Juan Velez, author of \u201cPassion For Truth: The Life of Blessed John Henry Newman\u201d (St. Benedict Press, $18.75).<\/p>\n
\tWhile stressing the call to holiness for both laity and clergy, Newman also came to recognize the gift of\u00a0 the teaching authority held by the bishops in union with the Pope.<\/p>\n
\tThis visible apostolic authority contrasts sharply with the modern Anglican practice of \u201cputting the beliefs of the Church up for a vote,\u201d the biographer observed.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\t\u201cPassion For Truth\u201d is the first major biography of Bl. Newman to be published since his beatification in 2010. Its author discussed the late cardinal's life and thought in an Aug. 10 interview, two days after the biography became available as an e-book.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cA big part of the biography is the first part of Newman's life, his process of conversion,\u201d explained Fr. Velez. During this time, \u201che had the question before him: 'What is the true Church? What is the fold of Christ?'\u201d<\/p>\n
\tFr. Velez hopes that \u201cPassion for Truth\u201d will help Anglicans and other non-Catholics understand Newman's journey, while also deepening Catholic readers' faith.<\/p>\n
\tNewman's life and writings, he noted, are \u201ca source of continued help to those who are thinking about their Catholic faith \u2013 or thinking about becoming Catholics.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tThe Victorian-era cardinal is a favorite of Pope Benedict XVI, who beatified him and has praised his contributions on topics like conscience and doctrinal development. Fr. Velez thinks it is \u201cvery likely\u201d Bl. Newman eventually \u201cwill be canonized, and then made a Doctor of the Church.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tBorn in 1801 and ordained an Anglican clergyman in 1825, Newman caused an uproar in his own day by becoming a Catholic in 1845. In that year's \u201cEssay on the Development of Christian Doctrine,\u201d he famously declared: \u201cTo be deep in history is to cease to be a Protestant.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\tDuring his Calvinist-leaning youth, and his later involvement in the high-Church Anglican \u201cOxford Movement,\u201d Newman had always understood Christianity as a faith founded on revealed dogmatic truths.<\/p>\n
\tIn time, he came to acknowledge that this original \u201cdeposit of faith\u201d required the safeguard of a living apostolic authority, to distinguish legitimate doctrinal developments from corruptions and errors.<\/p>\n
\tOrdained a Catholic priest in 1846, Newman was named a cardinal in 1879 and died 11 years later. Today, he is the patron of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, the Catholic jurisdiction set up in 2011 to preserve the Anglican heritage in communion with Rome.<\/p>\n
\tAs the ordinariate begins to draw Anglican clergy and laypersons into the Catholic Church, the future of their former communion \u2013 and particularly its U.S. branch the Episcopal Church \u2013 has been called into question over plunging demographics and doctrinal confusion.<\/p>\n
\tA July 2012 Beliefnet article described the Episcopal Church as \u201cnear collapse\u201d following its 2012 general convention, which formally approved same-sex \u201cblessing\u201d ceremonies and a policy on transgender clergy.<\/p>\n
\tDuring the same convention, the U.S. branch of the Anglican communion voted to sell its administrative headquarters in New York City. The Episcopal Church lost over 200,000 members and 300 parishes from 2006 to 2010, bringing its membership to the lowest level since the 1930s.<\/p>\n
\tThe Church of England, the world's flagship Anglican body, also faces issues related to biblical authority and sexual morality, along with a controversy over women bishops. At a July 2011 meeting, leaders heard that aging congregations could render the denomination \u201cno longer functionally extant\u201d by 2030.<\/p>\n
\tThis situation, Fr. Velez said, is a far cry from the Victorian-era Anglicanism of Newman's day \u2013 which held strongly to many basic Christian teachings on faith and morals, and saw its bishops as possessing authority to teach and govern.<\/p>\n
\tNevertheless, Newman's critiques of Anglicanism are key to understanding the institution's present crisis, Fr. Velez indicated.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cThere are underlying issues that are the root problem, and I think Newman had his finger on two of them,\u201d he observed.<\/p>\n
\tOne connection between historic Anglicanism, and its current struggles, is its inability to find grounding for what Newman called the \u201cdogmatic principle.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tFoundational to Newman's understanding of faith, this principle held that the Christian religion was founded on definite eternal truths revealed by God. While these truths could be grasped more deeply over time, through a process of development, they were not subject to any essential dispute or revision.<\/p>\n
\tIn both his Anglican and Catholic periods, Newman dedicated himself \u201cto fighting what he called 'liberalism in religion,'\u201d Fr. Velez noted. This is the \u201cemptying of religion\u201d that occurs \u201cwhen people believe in what they want,\u201d looking on faith and morals merely as matters of taste and opinion.<\/p>\n
\tWithin contemporary Anglicanism, where \u201crevealed truths are put to a vote\u201d and revised, there has been \u201ca very serious undoing of the basic religious beliefs and truths,\u201d Fr. Velez said.<\/p>\n
\tA related question faced by Newman before his conversion, and by Anglicans in the present day, concerns the \u201capostolicity\u201d of the Church \u2013 its continued governance by successors of the apostles, possessing the authority to teach and act in the name of Christ.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cWithout that ecclesial authority, the Church's teaching is undermined,\u201d Fr. Velez said \u2013 describing the process that has continued since Newman's day. \u201cThere is an unraveling of the faith.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\u201cNewman was worried about that in his time. He was worried about the bishops losing authority and not exercising it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tAs he reflected on Church history, and the process of sorting out true doctrinal developments from errors, Newman came to understand the authority of the Popes was \u201csomething constitutive of the Church, something foundational that God had wanted.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\u201cHe realized that the Anglican Church is not what the early Christian Church was, and is missing that papal authority.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tCompelled by his realizations to enter into full communion with the Church of Rome, Newman never looked back \u2013 despite facing personal hardships, public attacks, and misunderstandings between himself and others within the Catholic Church.<\/p>\n
\tSuch difficulties \u201care inevitable in human relations,\u201d and can be expected within the human reality of God's Church, Fr. Velez noted. Through them, Newman learned to exercise charity, and correct his own personal faults.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cNone of these difficulties that Newman experienced, made him doubt that he had made the right decision to become a Roman Catholic,\u201d Fr. Velez recalled.<\/p>\n
\tUpon becoming Catholic, Newman felt \u201clike a ship coming to port, from a boisterous ocean, and he felt safe. He never had any doubts of what the Catholic Church taught.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tAbove all, the biographer said, he \u201crealized that the most fundamental thing in life is to follow Jesus Christ in his Church \u2013 regardless of people's mistakes, and sins, and one's own sins.\u201d<\/p>\n
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San Diego, Calif., Aug 14, 2012 \/ 04:10 am (CNA).- A biographer of Blessed John Henry Newman says the noted 19th-century Catholic convert can offer guidance to Anglicans in the midst of their denomination's current moral and doctrinal crisis.<\/p>\n
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